Computer Gaming Fanatics Thread

[City_of_F]

Has anyone been playing Left 4 Dead 2?
It's a huge improvement on the first one & really well conceived & executed. However, the servers can be a bit flaky & randomly being dropped into a group of snotty 16 year olds can be a bit crap too.
So I'm a bit divided & am interested in what others might think...

Oh yeah! I'm still trying to survive most of the missions in easy mode though, so I'm still playing single player most of the time. I manage to get pretty high kill counts multiplayer, but I also have a bad habit of shooting my team-mates yet (which is annoying, but has been educational to my gaming experience)...

I tend to play games like Doom 3, Shadow Warrior and Blood 2 where anything that moves is pretty much coming to kill you, so I got used to wiping out everything!

I also tend to agree that your snotty 16 year olds can be a pain. I got kicked from a match with a childish "get the *#*$ out!" and I didn't even have a chance to tweak anyone off. Also had some punk decide to get on the chopper without coming back to save anybody and was gloating all the while (and calling us names), after we had saved him repeatedly...

Still, awesome game though. I've put a whole lotta time into it (although I have to go back to college homework at night as I'm back in class starting tomorrow).

[City_of_F]

Yakuza 1 and 2 for the PS2 have been really awesome to play (beat one this weekend, just started 2). It allows you to build stats like an RPG, but it is more of a martial-arts game.

The storyline is cheesy, but it is still addictive and Kazama (main character) is still a nice guy despite beating up half of Tokyo...

Anyway... older game, but quite a lot of fun.

[richie_b]

Oh yeah! I'm still trying to survive most of the missions in easy mode though, so I'm still playing single player most of the time. I manage to get pretty high kill counts multiplayer, but I also have a bad habit of shooting my team-mates yet (which is annoying, but has been educational to my gaming experience)...

I tend to play games like Doom 3, Shadow Warrior and Blood 2 where anything that moves is pretty much coming to kill you, so I got used to wiping out everything!

I also tend to agree that your snotty 16 year olds can be a pain. I got kicked from a match with a childish "get the *#*$ out!" and I didn't even have a chance to tweak anyone off. Also had some punk decide to get on the chopper without coming back to save anybody and was gloating all the while (and calling us names), after we had saved him repeatedly...

Still, awesome game though. I've put a whole lotta time into it (although I have to go back to college homework at night as I'm back in class starting tomorrow).

One of the things that's appealing to me is the difference between it & a standard FPS, like the avoidance of shooting team mates! My big bug bear is the folk moving across a line of fire: some folk do it a lot!
LOL @ the person flaming you after you'd saved him, it's the joy of online gaming with strangers! I've had similar a number of times.
Feel free to add me as a friend on Steam (I think I use the same user name, PM if not!) if you want some company getting through the maps: singleplayer is comparatively very lame.... I've completed them all on the basic difficulties now.

[City_of_F]

Ditto, I'm on under "City_of_F".

I'm still getting the highest kill counts and I've gotten quite a bit better! Awesome game... the more I play, the more addicted I become!

I wish I could play today, but I'm getting my enriched air Nitrox certification for SCUBA diving (should be cool, wanted to do this for months) and I have an essay due this weekend... *grumble*

[Andrewc]

I just played through Heavy Rain on PS3. That game is unbelievable. I'm not sure if the style of game play would be for everyone but it blew me away. I'm wondering if I should ever play through it again and have the one single "story line" or try to follow every avenue. Has anybody else played it?

[SpugFab]

I've played it and enjoyed it (it was free though, would have been churlish not to). I've got mixed feelings though.

I enjoyed it for obvious reasons. The story is decent and the visuals are stunning.

I hope it isn't the future of big budget computer gaming though. I don't think this is innovation at all. It might have a better attempt at storytelling than most games, but it takes huge liberties with gameplay. It reminds me of Dragons Lair in that regard. Some games are notable because they manage to do their in-game cutscenes within the game engine. Heavy Rain manages to do their game within their cutscene engine.

The experience it gives you is just so passive. Like when you look through the clues as the FBI guy. You think about who the killer might be, but there's nothing you can do about it. The game just progresses.

You never feel the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, because there's zero challenge. By the end of most games you have honed some kind of skill, returning to the start of the game would make that obvious. In 8 hours on Heavy Rain you've not developed at all.

I don't think any of these things are that bad in themselves, maybe challenge isn't an integral part of computer gaming, but overall I was left with a hollow feeling (which just gets worse as more praise is lavished on the game, and the more interviews Cage gives about how he's forcing the rest of the industry to innovate).

I played Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 at the same time (was off work ill for a couple of days). For me, those were much better experiences than Heavy Rain (shame neither game has the hardest difficulty mode unlocked from the start, but that's another topic).

Uncharted gets 10/10 for me, Heavy Rain is a solid 8.

[XkillerX]

Heavy rain? That HD 8 hour computer animation which is not completely faffing about and not really putting in work either? Sounds like a lot of wanking no? Reminds me of the "old" days of multimedia, when all the companies where obsessed with interactive cinema...... which promptly and prematurely died, and never resurrected, phew.

I cherish the idea but see no point if NOTHING gets randomised when you restart so replay value is a flat zero.

After the horrible dissapointment of supreme commander 2 , which unfortunately ended up a very, very ugly and horribly unplayable JRPG RTS knockoff starcraft, I'm trying to cope with the original again. Now that double full HD monitors and other completely unncesseray items are soup de jour (like quad core cpus and fscking awesome graphic cards) it's a much much better game. Much better game. However the tedious economy system still leaves a lot to be desired. Definetely not a game for the masses.

So how about that Bioshock 2? The sequel to, you know, the best shooter of 2007/8 etc ? You did not play it? Oh well nobody did. It's such a shyte game I think 2K would've been better off just publishing a "bioshock tournament" and leave Rapture at rest. It's a barely playable shooter with a storyline so thick it warps time and space.

[City_of_F]

Went back and bought Left 4 Dead 1... Still completely addicted... between work, martial arts and school, I'm averaging about two hours of sleep a night...

I have a copy of FallOut 3 a friend gave me and I haven't even loaded it yet...

[XkillerX]

Don't; it's horrible.

[City_of_F]

Don't; it's horrible.

Dang, it looked cool from the instruction manual.

[Andrewc]

I've played it and enjoyed it (it was free though, would have been churlish not to). I've got mixed feelings though.

I enjoyed it for obvious reasons. The story is decent and the visuals are stunning.

I hope it isn't the future of big budget computer gaming though. I don't think this is innovation at all. It might have a better attempt at storytelling than most games, but it takes huge liberties with gameplay. It reminds me of Dragons Lair in that regard. Some games are notable because they manage to do their in-game cutscenes within the game engine. Heavy Rain manages to do their game within their cutscene engine.

The experience it gives you is just so passive. Like when you look through the clues as the FBI guy. You think about who the killer might be, but there's nothing you can do about it. The game just progresses.

You never feel the thrill of victory or the agony of defeat, because there's zero challenge. By the end of most games you have honed some kind of skill, returning to the start of the game would make that obvious. In 8 hours on Heavy Rain you've not developed at all.

I don't think any of these things are that bad in themselves, maybe challenge isn't an integral part of computer gaming, but overall I was left with a hollow feeling (which just gets worse as more praise is lavished on the game, and the more interviews Cage gives about how he's forcing the rest of the industry to innovate).

I played Uncharted 2 and God of War 3 at the same time (was off work ill for a couple of days). For me, those were much better experiences than Heavy Rain (shame neither game has the hardest difficulty mode unlocked from the start, but that's another topic).

Uncharted gets 10/10 for me, Heavy Rain is a solid 8.

After a few days of having put it down I'm starting to feel like it was more of an interactive movie, really. Sure I got to choose how the characters were portrayed, but as you say you're not really challenged or get better at the game. I don't know if they pushed the limits with current technology but maybe if it was longer or much more indepth it would have been much better. I'm sure this style of game play could be developed much better or merged with more interaction in the future though. I still really enjoyed it though. Amanda was enjoying sitting there watching it as I played as if it were a movie.

I'm now on to FF:XIII after about 3 or so hours it's just feeling like a giant walk through, I'm not really getting to wander around and explore like I have in the previous FF games I've played. Maybe this will change later on in the game. I'm still trying to get used to the Paradigm system.

[Andrewc]

Red Dead Redemption.
I'm loving this game. Obviously draws parallels to GTA and is similar due to the engine used but I'm finding it much more engaging and deep than the GTA series. It's a game that may end up as a "Is it vegan?" thread at some point, although I tried to bring myself good karma by leaving a farmer hog-tied to the train tracks...

[SpugFab]

Borrowed Red Dead Redemption for a couple of weeks. I like it, really beautiful game in places and I love the setting. Was disappointed when one of the first missions was the old GTA car/bike race but with horses. I don't think the quality of the missions improved much from there (go here, speak to someone, go there). The accomplishments don't really appeal to me either (collect 50 herbs ffs). The combat is weak too. In the end I didn't play that much of it.

Moved on to Demons Souls now. Like the vibe of this one, hopefully I'll get into it a bit more. Doing a bit of Battlefield 2: Bad Company, SFIV, Bayonetta and Dead Space on the side.

Playing Final Fantasy 8 when on the move (Final Fantasy 9 to come once it's done).

PC Gaming - Played Portal at the weekend (due to the future coming of Portal 2). Played a couple of the Monkey Islands. Kicked off Deux Ex but not far in yet.

[Andrewc]

Since I started playing RDR a couple of weeks ago I've encountered a fair few bugs, some which have forced me to quit and restart missions, and some recurring bugs that make no sense. Not being able to skip some of the in-game cut scenes became annoying quickly, I found having the horse stand over the plants for example skips this.

I'm getting into this late, but I picked up MGS4 finally for cheap, I haven't played this series since the first release on PSX all those years ago.

[City_of_F]

Still completely absorbed into Left 4 Dead. If anyone hasn't played "The Passing" yet, I would highly recommend it. Fun level!

The new "Mutation" twist is also kind of interesting. I've managed to win 3 of like 10 new mutations, but they only rotate once a week...